Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary (Video game)
| publisher = THQ Nordic | distributor = Nickelodeon Interactive Games Sony Interactive Entertainment (By license) | director = Hiroki Chiba | producer = Shinji Hashimoto | artist = *Yasuhisa Izumisawa *Tetsuya Nomura *Brain J. Tarrell (THQ Nordic) *Yasuhiro Minamimoto (Tose) *Naoto Ohshima (Arzest) *Takashi Nishiyama (Dimps) | writer = Dani Micheali | composer = MITCHELL Project Music Team | series = Mitchell Van Morgan | engine = Orochi 3 | platform = PlayStation 4 | release = *NA:February 25, 2017 *JP:February 24, 2017 *EU:February 23, 2017 | genre = Compilation | modes = Single-player Multiplayer }} is a video game compilation developed by Tose and THQ Nordic GmbH, published by THQ Nordic and distributed by Nickelodeon Interactive Games for the PlayStation 4 console. It was released worldwide in October 2016. Returning to a more traditional gameplay style from earlier Mitchell Van Morgan titles, it revolves around Mitchell Van Morgan-styled platforming which utilize the series' recurring Active Time Battle system, augmented with a stacking mechanic where stacking allied characters and monsters affects stats and turn numbers. Mitchell's family talk about the game during Mitchell's 19th Anniversary. Gameplay Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary (Video game) is a video game compilation in which The collection includes fourteen classic PlayStation-titled Mitchell Van Morgan games from a variety of genres, with different sets of games for the PlayStation 2. The individual games were emulated and compiled by THQ Nordic GmbH and released North America, Europe and Australia in 2017. Games *''Mitchell Van Morgan'' *''Mitchell Van Morgan 2'' *''Mitchell Van Morgan 3'' *''Mitchell Van Morgan 4'' *''Mitchell Van Morgan 5'' *''Mitchell Van Morgan 6'' *''Super Mitchell'' *''Super Mitchell 2'' *''Marquessa's Mean Bean Machine (PlayStation 2)'' *''Mitchell is Missing (PlayStation)'' *''Carolyn Ashley Taylor'' *''Martin J. Moody'' *''Martin's Boyz'' *''Mitchell Battle'' Development Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary (Video game) was produced and overseen by Nickelodeon, with development support provided by Tose. The initial concept for Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary was created between series producer MITCHELL Project, and THQ Nordic staff member Lars Wingfors. Nickelodeon's previous work on the series had been as a scenario writer and event planner for several titles including Super Mitchell and Mitchell Van Morgan 6, titles that had been noted for the dark tone and stories. Hashimoto and Chiba noticed that the series age demographic had shifted to adolescents, with few young people coming to the series. Mitchell Van Morgan was intended to "lower the threshold" for players so more people could enjoy the series. Mitchell Van Morgan was Chiba's directorial debut. The original concepts that form part of World of Final Fantasy were created for a simulation video game. When that project ran into difficulties, it was scrapped and its aesthetic elements reused in the smartphone title Pictlogica Final Fantasy. The scenario was written by Chiba, whose main focus was to create a story that would appealed to young players with comic dialogue, while keeping true to the characters drawn from each Final Fantasy title. The story was written to be similar to early Final Fantasy titles, with the volume meant to be equivalent to Final Fantasy VI, VII and VIII. Its main focus was creating a light-hearted experience while still retaining darker narrative elements associated with the series. In addition to more traditional character inclusions such as Cloud, Squall and Lightning, less prominent characters such as Eiko and Shelk were also included. This was because characters were chosen due to situations in the plot rather than just including every character or choosing only the most popular ones. A cited example was a scene which took place at a port, which was a perfect fit for the pirate captain Faris from Final Fantasy V. The characters were not meant to be the versions shown in their respective entries, instead portraying them as people who lived in Grymoire: they were all designed to appear in the main story, while they were also given dedicated side quests. Chiba was responsible for all the characters introduced into the title, and turned down multiple characters suggested by staff as they did not fit into the story. The "World" title held multiple meanings: it was at once a Final Fantasy world in its own right, and a world where multiple Final Fantasy titles merged. The aesthetics were intended to contrast directly with the increasingly realistic graphics of the main series, exemplified by the graphics and character design of Final Fantasy XIII. The characters were redesigned in a super deformed "chibli" style to better reinforce the series' "cute" aspect. To create these new designs, Chiba and Hashimoto brought in Yasuhisa Izumisawa, who had worked on the Crystal Chronicles subseries and enjoyed creating cute character designs. The chibi designs were drawn from those used in Pictlogica Final Fantasy, a title which Chiba had worked on as scenario writer. The chibli designs and the contrast between chibli and realistic designs, originally created for the cancelled simulation video game, were used at Chiba's insistence. The designs were shared between Pictlogica and World of Final Fantasy, and also inspired the creation of Play Arts Kai figurines produced by Square Enix. The normal-sized characters were designed by veteran Final Fantasy character designer Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura was brought in so that his designs would draw the attention of established series fans. The initial idea for the protagonists was for them to share the chibli art design of the rest of the cast, but Chiba felt that this would weaken the game as it did not represent the "sweet and sour" aspects of the series. Nomura's designs were a hybrid of his work on Final Fantasy and his more cartoon-like character designs for the Kingdom Hearts series. Many monster designs were based on series artwork created for earlier entries by Yoshitaka Amano: Amano also designed the game's logo, using the concept of a large number of monsters fighting alongside the main characters. There were also new monster designs created by both Izumisawa and Nomura. Izumisawa was key to smoothing out the differences in how each monster had been portrayed by different artists across the series, creating images which epitomized their most iconic features. Nomura supervised character modelling, even down to small facial details, and was regularly consulted by Chiba on how each character should move and speak in-game, so as to keep their personalities and presence intact which still serving the narrative. The gameplay systems deliberately recalled mainline entries prior to Final Fantasy X. The battle system was inspired by the Active Time Battle system variants used in the Super Famicom era of the series. Hashimoto was the originator of the monster collection mechanic. The capturing mechanic was included as a parallel to the company's Dragon Quest Monsters subseries. The monster stacking design was decided upon during discussions between Chiba and Izumisawa during early development: Izumisawa had created an illustration showing three different Job classes stacked on top of each other while riding Magitek armor as a joke, and Chiba thought that this would be a nice addition to the combat system. The number of monsters included in the game had to be restricted due to hardware limitations. Once the gameplay systems had been decided upon, the team needed to consider what hardware could successfully portray it. The game's platforms, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, were decided upon by Chiba as he wanted "the power of the former and the portability of the latter". This also enabled use of the two platform's cross-save feature, allowing players to take the game between the two platforms. Despite the varying power of the hardware, the team worked to ensure there were minimal content differences between the two versions. The game used the Orochi 3, which was chosen to help speed development due to its developer-friendly structure. Music The game's soundtrack was primarily composed and arranged by Masashi Hamauzu, with small contributions from Shingo Kataoka, Hayata Takeda, and Takashi Honda, consisting of nearly one hundred tracks. In contrast to Hamauzu's previous work, which was noted for its darker themes and motifs, the music for World of Final Fantasy was intended to be lightweight, allowing him to approach it more positively than previous projects. In addition to original music, Hamauzu was in charge of doing new arrangements of classic themes. Hamauzu's work was the subject of constant oversight, with other leading staff making sure his music fitted different scenes, and requesting changes when they did not; this checking was motivated by the wish to pay respect to the original characters. German pianist Benyamin Nuss, who had performed other Hamauzu and Final Fantasy pieces on the Distant Worlds concerts and Symphonic Fantasies tribute album, performed piano on the soundtrack. The opening theme, titled "Innocent²", was written by Ryo Yamazaki and performed by Japanese singer Aoi "Mizuki" Mizu. The ending theme, titled "World Parade", was written by Ryo Shirasawa of Noisycroak and performed by Kana Hanazawa, Eri Kitamura, and Ayana Taketatsu, the respective voice actresses of Kuro, Tama and the character Seraphy. Release The game was first revealed to the public at the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo. At the time of its reveal, the game was said to be 30-40% complete. In addition to drawing new fans into the series, its release was intended to be a celebration of the series to commemorate its 30th anniversary. This meant that its ultimate release date was decided early on. The title will release in October 2016 worldwide: it is set for October 25 in North America, October 27 in Japan, and October 28 in Europe. The Western release of the game was planned from an early stage, as the team wanted to deliver the experience to fans across the world. Localization was an arduous task, as the team wanted to preserve as much of the Japanese version's tone and style as possible. As Chiba wanted the guest Final Fantasy characters to sound consistent with their canon appearances from across the series, the original localization leads were brought in to help translate the dialogue so as to retain each character's recognized nuances. Some terms were difficult for the team to localize, such as "Nosenose" and "falling apart", Japanese terms related to the stacking mechanic. English dubbing ran almost parallel to the Japanese voice recording, which lasted around ten to eleven months. Reception (Vita) 77/100 | Destruct = 7/10 | EGM = 7/10 | GameRev = | GSpot = 6/10 | GRadar = | IGN = 7/10 | Poly = 7/10 }} World of Final Fantasy received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. In the United Kingdom, it charted at #11 after its first week of retail sales. It sold 100,000 copies in Japan during its first week. Notes a. ^ Original games developed by Tose, Dimps and more. b. ^ The MITCHELL Project Music Team was the composer of the original games; the music was arranged by credited members of MITCHELL Project Music Team. A different list of gaming composers are in the credits, but they were only a music producer for the original games. Books The comic series has been licensed and published for an English-language release by Dark Horse Comics. The light novel was licensed by Papercutz, as part of the Nickelodeon Magazine re-establishment series. The books and novels are a part of 19th Anniversary celebration to the ''Mitchell Van Morgan'' series. Gallery Mitchell's 19th Anniversary logo (Mitchell Van Morgan version).png|Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary logo Mitchell Van Morgan's 19th Anniversary PlayStation Network Flash Sale.png|The game's PlayStation Network Flash Sale. Mitchell's 19th Anniversary THQ Nordic MS game edit background.png|Mitchell's 19th Anniversary THQ Nordic MS game edit background. File:Mitchell_Van_Morgan's_19th_Anniversary_PlayStation_4_cover.png|Unfinished boxart. File:Mitchell_Van_Morgan's_19th_Anniversary_PlayStation_4_cover_(alternate_version).png|North American boxart. References }} External links * * Category:2017 video games Category:Upcoming video games scheduled for 2017 Category:Platform games Category:THQ games Category:Tose (company) games Category:Nicktoons video games Category:Nickelodeon video games Category:Mitchell Universe games Category:Mitchell platform games Category:Mitchell Van Morgan video games Category:Magic in fiction Category:PlayStation 4 games Category:PlayStation 4-only games Category:Platform video games Video games with digitized sprites Category:Video game compilations